Number one rule of any password is: the weakest link is human. xkcd often puts out great educational comic strips on the subject. One I am thinking of, as no doubt you could have seen in the generator post, is the legendary “correct horse battery staple”, only that he did rigged the game to prove his point. Tr0ub4dor&3 is a bad password, because it is essentially troubadour in Leet. But it’s only 11 characters long, fit for most sadistic password policies out there. correcthorsebatterystaple is one long password with 25 characters. You cannot use this in any of the websites…
Tagged Password Policy
How to Generate Memorable Password
I have made several Python password generators. One consistent goal of my generators is its password usability; memorized or not, a user should be able to type it without the worry of user errors. The key here is “type”, because, I’ve learnt the hard way that some password policies out in the wild are purely sadistic. I won’t name names, but one website I use frequently doesn’t allow copy-pasting, no extensions, and virtual keyboards only, on both mobile and desktop environment. Memorizing a password by muscle memory is simply not possible; whoever came up with that idea must have thought…
App to Check Your Password in Security Breaches
I suppose it’s a playlist of cybersecurity for this week. This is yet another good usage of searching through known breaches covered yesterday’s post. If you are not using a password manager, like it or not, you are most likely guilty of reusing the same password. If you are not using a random password generator of any kind, at least a writer’s dice, human mind is not the best device of generating randomness.
How to Generate Type-Friendly Password pt. 3
I do hope I wouldn’t need to come up with even more type-friendly password generators than this version. After making two, one for generic, one for copy-paste, versions of password generators, I am now hit with one of the weirdest policies I’ve encountered yet: there were different limits on how many digits and special characters a password can have. I don’t have a word to describe the misery I felt. At least the website in question supported up to 16 characters long password.
How to Generate Type-Friendly Password pt. 2
As I have written in the past on generating a type-friendly password with Python, it hit me like a freight truck today. One of the Korean apps have “upped” their security policy demanding now I type the password which is likely 20 or more characters, completely random, on a virtual keyboard. If you have never used one of those, it’s like a touchscreen keyboard, except all the locations are scrambled. Typing 20+ characters on those keyboard is an arduous task.
App to Add 2FA on WordPress
Surprisingly, WordPress supports neither 2FA (two-factor authentication) nor passkeys. Considering the prevalence of both and how readily available they have become, it’s still hard for me to believe WordPress does not have native solutions. Websites, of any kind, due its nature, are bound to be exposed. No wonder why WordPress is being preyed on.
How to Generate Random PIN Codes
One of the rather recently added feature on 1Password, which I believe was both an oversight and the inherent flaw of the system, was PIN generation. The password manager was always capable of saving PIN codes, often only 4 digits long. Randomly generating one wasn’t supported until recently. To play devil’s advocate, it is only 4 numbers.
How to Generate Custom Length Passwords for Apple Passwords App
In my previous post, though I didn’t go into any details as to what limitations I’ve faced, I believe I’ve hinted enough that Apple’s Passwords app has missed the mark on the convenience features. One of which was rather shocking; the app doesn’t let a user generate a custom length password. The app is certainly capable of generating two kinds of passwords, one with special characters and one without, but not all websites are open to take them, let alone it will accept such a long password.
How to Generate Random Password with Custom Special Characters
In one of the previous post, I wrote a Python code to generate “type-friendly” version of random passwords, where “type-friendly” meant generating clusters of strings. But touchscreen isn’t the only time I want custom grammar rules from password managers.
How to Generate Type-Friendly Password
For the life of me, I do not see why this is a thing for Korean websites and apps, but Korean apps often require “virtual keyboard” on a smartphone. Yes, you heard me correctly. On a smartphone’s virtual touchscreen keyboard, they insist to put in a new randomized keyboard for security sake, while banning the use of simple copy-paste or password manager. Not to mention the password policy of these apps often limit the length to either 8 characters in extreme cases and maybe 16 in some half-decent banks. KISA, Korea Internet & Security Agency, actually published an article NOT…
How to Randomly Generate a Pattern Lock pt. 2
The last how-to I published had some backstories. It’s always easier to input a pattern lock when it only has 8-direction: up, down, left, right and 4 diagonals. But security-wise, having more options is always more preferable. This is one of the weakness of the pattern lock; you might as well use a simple PIN code for better security.
How to Randomly Generate a Pattern Lock
PSA before we begin: if you are using pattern lock on your device as primary method of authentication, find alternatives. Pattern lock is unsafe. There is a reason why password managers don’t try supporting it. Compared to that of PIN, the safety provided by pattern lock is mediocre at best even with the best of practices.